Nugget of the day: Star Fox had metal legs?
January 30th, 2012 Posted in General Nintendo, News, Posted by Brian
Anyone remember this classic Nintendo Power issue? It’s pretty old – all the way back from April 1993.
At first glace, you may not pick up on anything particularly noteworthy. Upon closer inspection of the cover, however, you’ll notice that Fox’s legs appear to be made of metal… and he apparently lacks feet/legs.
Here’s where things get really interesting. Check out this blurb regarding legless pilots:
“Legless pilots can handle more Gs than their legged bretherin. When gravity forces blood from the brain to lower extremities, it causes the pilot to black out. But if you have no legs to force blood to, more blood can stay in the brain, and it’s easier for the heart to pump blood back to the brain.
“Their legs were probably voluntarily amputated as these are all trained pilots. Their futuristic society allows for prosthetics that allows them to walk and run normally so there’s no loss in performing these amputations.”
I will mention here that other titles in the series, such as Star Fox Command, make it seem as though the characters are wearing boots – see this picture for example.
So in the SNES game, the Star Fox unit’s legs were amputated so that they’d be more effective in the cockpit? With Nintendo, you never know! I’m not ready to believe this theory just yet, but it’s interesting nonetheless. Perhaps Nintendo was thinking about having the Star Fox crew lack feet/legs early on in the series, but later changed the “metal legs” to boots.
Thanks to Jake for the tip!
9 Responses to “Nugget of the day: Star Fox had metal legs?”
By Ride Ze Litenin on Jan 30, 2012
Interesting…. O_o
By invader_quirk on Jan 30, 2012
If that is a boot, the artist is incompetent.
By LaughingTachikoma on Jan 30, 2012
Uhh… wow, guys. different character, that’s from the original game on the snes
By Hejiru on Jan 31, 2012
@LaughingTachikoma
No, it’s Fox McCloud. Same character, just no longer canon.
Anyway, I seriously doubt Fox had his legs amputated. NP just made that up.
By pie on Jan 31, 2012
They reveiwed DuckTales 2, no way im buying this magazine
By Dusk on Jan 31, 2012
Finally! I can comment again!
On topic: I think the whole leg amputation theory is actually pretty cool. It’d be one hell of a graduation ceremony for the pilots good enough to fly!
By psy_commando on May 18, 2012
Well, nice to see an article on starfox snes. But before getting farfetched explanation as to why his legs are like that, you should perhaps look at more obvious things first.
The artist that made that page obviously used the Starfox puppets as references, those puppets had very obvious articulated feet. While in the official in-game art and NP comics they have non-articulated metal boots.
Plus, while we’re at it, arwings don’t have landing gears, even in starfox snes the g-diffuser was said to keep the planes hovering 1 meter above the ground (stated in the mission file printout strategy guide for starfox).
And yeah, I’m a Starfox nerd..
By Noble Wrot on May 18, 2012
Old thread is old.
By thomas on May 18, 2012